4 ms·
When I take notes when typing, I can transcribe the content word-for-word without knowing what I am hearing and without thinking about it. When I hand write, I
by nxc18 2mo ago
When I take notes when typing, I can transcribe the content word-for-word without knowing what I am hearing and without thinking about it.
When I hand write, I am generally forced to either slow down and repeat what I am listening/watching (if an option), or actually think about what is being said, and choose the important parts to write down, or rephrase it in a more efficient-to-write way.
I am taking a course right now and I find repeatedly that I understand the concepts from taking down the notes (many aha moments), and then I remember. I rarely if ever actually look at the notes I take - they are objectively inferior as a product compared to the official course notes or the textbook.
Maybe typing would be efficient for learning if I was bad it - could be an interesting hypothesis to test.
- elmo-shrugged 2mo agoGive subjects a chopstick for each hand and say you have to hold one end and type with the other, and then test recall/understanding? That could be interesting
- eviks 2mo agoIf you don't read notes, why waste time making them instead of slowing down even more and spending that extra time/effort on active listening/thinking?
- quest88 2mo agoThey way the slow down and spend extra effort is by writing notes.
- bluGill 2mo agoI get distracted and my mind starts to think of better ways to explain the last point... Soon I have no clue what the last ten minutes were about. Taking notes makes me get back on task faster so I can find the next note to write. I'd like to slow down and just listen but the reality is I won't.
- eviks 2mo agoInteresting, so "otherthinking" is bad here. Have you tried other devices to turn yourself back on track without the extra work?
- nxc18 2mo agoWriting is thinking.
- RealityVoid 2mo agoCertain kinds of writing is thinking, but you're not writing in the thinking way, you're transcribing.
- eviks 2mo agoThinking is thinking. Then you can write your thoughts for later use of think more instead
- CodesInChaos 2mo agoWriting is a distraction from thinking.
- cma 2mo agoWhere does this explanation fall apart? There must be a cutoff point where more difficulty of getting the info down is worse than more ease. Otherwise, wouldn't a better recommendation be to do all your notes more slowly tracing with your big toe in the sand and then taking pictures? Do touch typists get less out of digital note taking than hunt and peck typists?
- crazygringo 2mo agoWhen I hand write taking notes, I am indeed forced to slow down, and it's maddening. I'm busy trying to figure out how to condense the ideas into something I can quickly write, and in the meantime the lecturer is continuing and I've missed something important they've just said. I genuinely do not understand how people find it helps them to handwrite notes in a lecture. If I type on my laptop, I can do that "mindlessly", which is beneficial because then I have enough of my brain free that I can also understand what the lecturer is saying. Ask a question if I have one, etc. If I'm hand-writing notes in a notebook, I can't do any of that. I'm so focused on trying to get the stuff down that it's using a lot of my brain that I'd really rather be using to actually think more deeply about what is being said. I'm genuinely so baffled by people who find that hand-writing notes helps them understand the material better. I used to assume they were terrible typists, but I don't think it's that. But for example, with your comment, you say that when typing notes, you can transcribe word-for-word without knowing or thinking. But... why not just actually pay attention? Isn't that the whole point? Why do you need slower handwriting to force you to actually pay attention? That's what confuses me so much. I pay attention by default. Writing notes by hand takes away from my attention, because I have to give attention to that.
- jakevoytko 2mo agoIt kept me listening. When I was on minute 70 of a boring lecture I started daydreaming. If I was writing even minimal notes, I'd need to briefly consider each idea and decide whether it was worth recording.
- crazygringo 2mo agoBut if you're taking notes by typing then you have to be listening as well. You can't daydream and transcribe at the same time. At least I sure can't.
- jakevoytko 2mo agoI can take notes as fast as people can talk, but I'm much slower at writing so I needed to synthesize it into a condensed idea. It doesn't feel the same, to me at least.